Fred - 2021 Painting Bits

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Looks beautiful

[Martin1914]

Fred
Really impressed by your artillery bases for ITLSU. Great looking samurai game.
Regards Mart

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

More good stuff

[Techno II]

Wot they all sed !

Cheers - Phil

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Don't remember giving you typing lessons Phil

[fred.]

Thanks all - glad you like the look of the game. I've been upgrading various bits of scenery over the last couple of years.

Mart - I really enjoyed putting together the WWI guns with limbers - interesting how a rule (50mm square base) led to some research, and then making mini dioramas for the guns, which look so much better than the typical couple of crew around a gun.

[fred.]

Dungeon Exploring

Unfortunately due to my youngest daughter testing positive for COVID, we are in self-isolation at home now - she is fortunately fine, as are the rest of us, but being confined to the house again feels very constrained. Not that we were out that much, but when you can't do something you do miss it.

But on a positive I have found the Four Against Darkness rules by Ganesha Games, and have had the chance to get out my Pendraken Dungeon modules and play some games. The rules are good fun, give a good mix of exploring, fighting and finding treasure. The rules are pretty abstract and don't need figures, but figures and 3D terrain are the point of miniature gaming!


First encounter with 2 trolls - party was making heavy weather of it, but then the rogue got behind and backstabbed them to victory



The party meet an Anubis Warrior in a corridor, the Barbarian shows how it is done with the power of exploding 6s



The whole of the first level - laid out like this it could do with some casualty figures to show the party's progress / trail of destruction


In the third level the party meet a swarm of undead, who were dispatched rapidly by the now much more powerful characters



The whole of the third dungeon

The 4AD rules have their own charts for randomly generating rooms - but I made my own rules so that I could use my dungeon terrain - basically I assigned each piece of terrain to a playing card - red for corridors black for rooms, and dealt a card out at a time to build the dungeon. Which works well. It seems to take 2 levels of my dungeon pieces to make a 4AD adventure.

If you fancy a good solo game, which you can use figures with, a fiver on these rules is money well spent.

[mmcv]

Great stuff Fred. I had many fun games of 4AD with pencil and paper but works great with miniatures here.

[Ithoriel]

Looks good, sounds fun. What more can one ask!

I like a bit of eye-candy even if it's not strictly necessary.

[Techno II]

Looks damn fine, Forbes.....

Sorry to hear you've all had to self isolate.

Get well soon to the youngster !......And hope the rest of the family manage to avoid it.

All the best - Take care - Phil.

[fred.]

I like a bit of eye-candy even if it's not strictly necessary.

Indeed, I don't think I'd suggest going out and getting dungeon tiles to play 4AD, but if you have them, then why not use them! It certainly helps me be more engaged with the game.

Looking at these photos I realise that I've not added any of the bits of dungeon furniture and accoutrements that I have - which would definitely help in the photos. I think adding a couple of rooms to my available tile set might help, as I seem to have ended up a bit corridor heavy, and within 4AD corridors are less likely to generate encounters.

Get well soon to the youngster !......And hope the rest of the family manage to avoid it..

Thanks Phil - fortunately she is fine, and the rest of us are still testing as negative, so lets hope it stays that way.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent Forbes.
Hope the all clear comes soon!

[fred.]

Thanks Will

[Raider4]

Love the dungeon - looks really good.

I have 4AD (and a couple of other solo rpg-lite type games) and using the tiles & miniatures really enhances those games, I think.

[fred.]

Love the dungeon - looks really good.

I have 4AD (and a couple of other solo rpg-lite type games) and using the tiles & miniatures really enhances those games, I think.

Cheers - its taken a long while to get it on the table - but recently it has got a lot of play, first with Night Hunters, and now a number of games with 4AD

[fred.]

Sludge

Inspired by Ogrob's excellent army over on LAF https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=131883.0

I have bought a copy of the Sludge rules (in Blaster magazine) and have started thinking about how to put some forces together in 10mm. Whilst Sludge is certainly written (and illustrated) with 28mm figures in mind, there is nothing that makes in a 28mm rule-set, indeed it uses multi-based figures.

From looking at unit sizes and typical bases sizes, my plan is to stick with the base sizes in the rules, but to double up the figure count. So a 20mm base will get 2 x 10mm figures, and a 40mm line regiment base will get 6 figures.

Where I am torn is whether to go square bases or round bases. I have huge amounts of figures for different armies already based on 40mm square bases, and many of these cover the 'period' that Sludge is based around - "knights and firearms" as it is summarised in the rules.

But these figures tend to be a much higher density (often 10-16 figures per base) than I'm thinking for Sludge, and perhaps more significantly they are all a bit bright and colourful. So not really very Sludge like.

All the examples in the rules are of figures on round bases, and the look good, and I do like the look of round bases. But I am aware that if I build a couple of sludge forces on round bases they will be orphaned from being able to be used with all the rest of my square based stuff. I'm not sure this is a major problem, but being able to use square based figures is more likely to get my gaming buddies involved. But any of our existing armies would need additions of smaller based units (skirmishers and elites) to build a sludge force.

I think I am leaning towards round bases.

But I'm also aware I have a lot of late war WWI figures on 30mm square bases, who almost be definition fit the feeling of sludge! Adding a few knights to WWI forces also seems possible. But perhaps I will keep this as a separate thought - as these are already a distinct set of figures from the earlier period ones.

[fred.]

Some WIP pictures of figures for my first faction



The whole lot, going for a dark grey main clothing colour with dark for turbans and some highlights. Mainly brass for metal work. These figures should give me 6 bases of crossbow armed line infantry, 12 of skirmishers and 6 of shock infantry, pulse a few command figures.


TB Line crossbow troops


Pendraken NW Frontier figures

[fred.]

More work on the figures today. Getting there on the main colours. Need to pick out some more bits of equipment then give everything a brown wash.

Tried a green wash on the shields so will see how that comes out before doing the helmets.

[Techno II]

Coming along very nicely, Forbes ! 

I love the 'contrast' on the chaps with the Orange ? (Vermilion ?) headgear*...really makes them 'pop'.
Great stuff.

Cheers - Phil.

* What colour does everyone else see that as ?

[fred.]

 Thanks Phil

It's orange paint, and to me looks pretty orange in the photo